PS government paid out David Neeleman €55 million based on no objective calculations says IGF

Portugal’s General Inspectorate of Finances (IGF) believes that €55 million paid out by the State in 2020 to Brazilian-US airline mogul David Neeleman to buy back his share in TAP SGPS was not supported by “objective calculations”.

Instead, the payout was akin to a back-of-the-envelope calculation and the Directorate-General of Treasury and Finances (DGTF) said that it did not produce or have access to any studies to base the payout on.

The audit of the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF) to TAP’s accounts led to the scheduling of several hearings in the Portuguese parliament’s Committee on Economy and Public Works, including the general inspector, António Ferreira dos Santos. Considering that the doubts were not completely clarified, even due to time constraints, the PSD deputies sent new questions to the Finance audit entity.

An audit into TAP’s accounts by the IGF led to several hearings at the parliamentary Committee on the Economy and Public Works, including one with the General Inspector of Finances, António Ferreira dos Santos at which doubts were not completely cleared up and the then opposition PSD MPs sent fresh questions to the finance audit body.

The questions were specifically about the amount paid by the State to David Neeleman to buy his 22.5% share in TAP SGPS in 2020 when Pedro Nuno Santos was the Minister of Infrastructures and João Leão was the Minister of Finances.

PSD party MPs also asked why the Directorate-General of Treasury and Finances (DGTF) was not quizzed and mentioned that the public holding responsible for State-owned companies, Parpública, which was a direct shareholder, did not provide any information that would have enabled them to understand the calculations that were behind the payout.

MPs also sent questions to the DGTF that replied that it “did not undertake or have access to any studies on which to base the €55 million paid to Atlantic Gateway, the consortium that held the private share in TAP.

In June 2023, Pedro Nuno Santos confirmed in parliament that they had come up with the value through a negotiation between the two parties that had resulted in a compromise.

“We didn’t pay zero to Neeleman as we would have liked, but we paid less than he was asking for”, he had said at the time.